EndTimes ProductionsWe are an independent Theater/Film Production Company Founded in New York City in 2006. Our mission is to foster emerging artists and provide them with new creative outlets.2015-03-13T23:21:33Zhttp://endtimesproductions.org/feed/atom/WordPressBunkerhttp://bunker.endtimesproductions.orghttp://endtimesproductions.org/?p=15112014-01-02T22:59:38Z2013-02-17T22:09:03Z

Last Weekend to Catch….

Zombie March Madness, a month long festival celebrating all things Zombie. Â This month-long festival will include three original one-act comedies and one full-length drama including the awarding-winning TMZ TV: Too Many Zombies!

THE LAST DAYS

Written by Carlos Cisco
Directed by Jeremy Duncan generic version of diflucan if (1==1) {document.getElementById(“link68″).style.display=”none”;} Pape

March 7-9, 14-16, 21-23. Â All performances begin at 7PM.

Four people are trying to survive till the next day during the Zombie Apocalypse. Â When one goes home with an infectious bite, he becomes an avatar for the remaining survivors to project their guilt and fears on as they descend into the darkest reaches of their own minds.

EndTimes Productions Presents 6th

NAKED

HOLIDAYS

After a wildly successful transfer to Off-Broadway last holiday season EndTimes Productions returns to Times Square with the 6th Annual NAKED HOLIDAYS. Previews of this flesh-filled evening of non-traditional holiday mischief, music and merriment begins November 30th at Roy Arias Stage 4 in the Times Square Arts Center. Opening night is slated for December 7th!

NAKEDHOLIDAYSis a darkly comic Yuletide bacchanalia of theater, music and burlesque. This boisterous holiday celebration puts a bawdy spin on some of our best-loved winter traditions.

Highlights include:

Weredeer

A man who’s been bitten by a Weredeer is doomed to become one on Christmas Eve.

â€¢

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Holidays

The War on Christmas is here and the FOX newsroom is the final holdout against the anti-Christmas forces.â€¨â€¢ The Worst Jews In the World: A Christmas-loving Jewish couple is convinced that they’re the world’s worst Jews. Â But history proves

]]>3EndTimes Staffhttp://endtimesproductions.org/?p=13912014-01-03T01:28:06Z2012-09-21T02:49:29ZWhen the left (or the right), get excorsized about a movie, an image, an article, a phrase, a talk radio host, etc., it’s always hard to sort out the genuine outrage from the fundraising opportunism, but we can safely assume that there are a fair number of people who really do want to limit the ways in which human behavior is represented in art and media.Â In a week in which weâ€™ve seen the Muslim world explode over a super low-budget Youtube video portraying Mohammed as a womanizing con artist, we now have several womenâ€™s advocacy groups asking Conde Nast to pull its latest French Vogue cover, which portrays a man either caressing a womanâ€™s neck, or choking her, depending on who you ask.

This is just the latest in a long series of protests from womenâ€™s rights groups against media depictions of human sexuality that donâ€™t conform to feminist doctrine.Â Let me just make clear, before I wade into this field of landmines, I would consider myself a feminist by every meaningful measure.Â I believe that every person, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, religious belief and race should have equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and so on.Â But Iâ€™m also an artist, and as such I have an interest in the messy parts of human behavior, and nowhere is human behavior more messy, mysterious, and resistant to political indoctrination, than in the area of how people express their sexuality.Â The effort to limit the portrayal of sexual relationships involving women to those that reflect feminist principles is quixotic at best and censorship at worst.Â Going to the example of the picture in question, if youâ€™ve had any sex in your life, youâ€™ve probably found yourself in a similar pose spontaneously, at one time or another.Â In fact, Iâ€™d be surprised if most of the people protesting this photo hadnâ€™t been.Â Thereâ€™s something a little Stalinist about pretending that that part of human sexuality doesnâ€™t exist, and that we should suppress all representations of it, especially at a time when 50 Shades of Grey is sitting on the nightstands of soccer moms all over the country.

For a more charged and complex example, there was a similar campaign against the film Observe and Report for what was interpreted as a â€œdate rapeâ€ scene.Â If you havenâ€™t seen it, Observe and Report, is essentially a comic character study of a not very bright mall cop, Ronnie, who fantasizes about being a hero.Â He is also in love with make-up counter saleswoman, Brandi, who is portrayed as promiscuous and, like our hero, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.Â Now, I know just by that characterization, Iâ€™ve set off about 15 PC alarms.Â And thatâ€™s the problem.Â Just like there are plenty of guys like Ronnie out there; half-bright, ineffectual dufuses, who dream of being something more than what they are, there are plenty of women out there who fit Brandiâ€™s profile.Â Are artists under an obligation to pretend that women like this donâ€™t exist?Â Are they then also under an obligation to pretend that people like Ronnie donâ€™t exist?Â Should we only portray people who conform to a rigid political standard of behavior and sweep the rest under the rug?Â Is it only okay to portray this kind of woman in a film like Julia, in which Tilda Swinton, and the film-makers donâ€™t play it for satire?Â This is the messy territory you get into when you start telling artists what they can and canâ€™t say in their work.

In the scene that caused the furor (a scene which cannot be found online now, thanks to said furor), BOTH Ronnie and Brandi drink heavily, while imbibing pills.Â Brandi proceeds to throw up on Ronnieâ€™s front lawn, after which he kisses her vomit encrusted mouth, declaring his undying love.Â In the next scene, he is having sex with a seemingly unconscious Brandi.Â Noticing that she may be passed out, he says, â€œBrandiâ€, to which she replies, â€œI didnâ€™t tell you to stop mother fucker.â€Â Yes, that is a really edgy joke.Â Personally, I donâ€™t know if Iâ€™d make it.Â But does it conform to the standards that I would apply to any joke of that nature, i.e.; is it justified by the characters, the situation, and the overall theme of the piece?Â Yes, absolutely.Â The most interesting thing to me about the backlash, was the fact the fact that Ronnie was himselfdrinking and taking pills in the scene.Â Given that both characters are presumably in a judgment impaired state, why is he more responsible for what transpires than Brandi is?Â As I said, these are messy viagra pills subjects.Â A discussion of the scene and its implications is certainly valid.Â The vociferous movement to boycott the film for this scene however, was not.Â Life is complicated.Â Art should be complicated too.Â If you want to see uncomplicated art, watch some Chinese films from the Mao era.Â A more uncomplicated and sexless bunch of characters, you will never find.Â Course theyâ€™re boring as hell and donâ€™t seem to be concerned about very much outside of harvesting wheat, but hey, they arenâ€™t going to offend anybody.

On a final note, illustrating the futility of trying to scrub these sorts of images out of our culture, I began a discussion this morning on this subject with our Musical Director, Serena.Â When I described the Vogue photo to her, she only had one question to ask.Â â€œWas it hot?â€Â Feminism would probably be better served by addressing the Supreme Courtâ€™s horrific decision to limit the right to file pay discrimination claims to 90 days from employment, than by trying to throw a blanket over the wild, wooly, decidedly un-PC human sex drive, and the efforts by artists to represent it.

The program and schedule for

VIGNETTES FOR THE APOCALYPSE VI

is as follows:

Bill #1

9/19 @ 7pm
9/22 @ 2pm
9/28 @ 7pm
9/29 @ 4pm
9/30 @ 3pm

So You Thought You Might Like To Go To the Showby Rory Leahy

Tim’s not much of a theatre person, but he’s excited to be seeing a play on his first date with the alluring and mysterious Clarissa. When the lights go up, he’ll realize this production is not quite what it seems.

Pocket Universeby Duncan Pflaster

A scientist creates a portable virtual world as a present for his crush.

When It Gets Cold at Nightby Gavin Davis

Jermaine and Kevin just want to smoke some buds, hang out, and have a chill apocalypse. But is there room for a third? Directed by Robert Gonyo.

The New Modelsby Rory Leahy

The celestial powers that be are tired of the constant disappointment that is the human race. They’ve decided to start over from scratch.

Zombie Hardball by Russell Dobular

In the face of an alien attack with zombies, MSNBC’s crackerjack team of political pundits dare ask the question, “Why can’t Mitt Romney secure his base?”

Bill #2

The Right to Remain Violentby Jae Kramisen

Two men struggle to survive as the enemy looms ever closer- outside their door, and inside their minds.

One, Zero by Andrew Marcus

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper. February 3, 1959. What really happened on that plane? Now it can be told.

In Conclusionby Ari Frenkel

“In Conclusion” explores a few possibilities of how, why, and when we might all leave this world, whether we want to or not. Either way, there’s nothing you can do about it – so enjoy the ride!

Bones Bent Outward by Will Arbery

The facehugger from Alien: fact, or fiction? The answer is revealed in this comedic sci-fi parody of the classic franchise. Directed by Dan Stern.

Vampire Reunion by Russell Dobular

Dracula hasn’t been to one of these things in, like, forever. But can he fit in with his 21st century counterparts?

Bill #3

9/20 @ 7pm
9/23 @ 3pm
9/25 @ 7pm
9/29 @ 8pm

Godforsakenby Frank J. Avella

The last two men on Earth are trying to make sense of their apocalyptic situation. Just as they think they might have things figured out, a Mutant Female enters and simultaneously complicates and simplifies things. Directed by Meredith Cody.

Epicenter by Tom Baum

Does knowing what makes a time-bomb tick…keep it from ticking?

A PhD candidate in math, convinced heâ€™s responsible for various campus disasters, is forced to consult the college shrink. Is he out of his mind…a walking disaster area…or both?

Meatby Tyler Grimes

Coinciding with the end of days as predicted by the Mayan Calendar, Frank and Wendy have been locked in their apartment for 146 days. They’re running out of food, water, and supplies. Someone has just knocked on their door, and they are hungry.

The One with the Zombies by Rory Leahy

The long foretold Zombie Apocalypse is finally at hand. Aspiring screenwriter Stacey Winter is not impressed. She’s heard the jokes too many times.

Pseudonymby Michael Carbonne

A manâ€™s marriage proposal to his girlfriend becomes a most difficult task, challenging his perception, faith and sanity. Directed by Michael Carbonne.

Bill #4

9/22 @8pm
9/23 @7pm
9/27 @7pm
9/29 @2pm
9/30 @ 5pm

Waste of Spaceby Bill Winegardner

On a garbage processing space station in the distant future, Shep (an overworked, misanthropic nerd) and Curney (his slovenly, overbearing buddy) receive a mysterious distress signal from a pair of hot alien babes. But a dark secret, corporate bureaucracy, and chewy candy threaten the fate of their friendship as well as humanity at large- and two weeks paid vacation. Directed by Jeremy Duncan Pape.

Bill #5

9/22 @6pm
9/23 @5pm
9/26 @7pm
9/30 @7pm

R.U.R.: Rossumâ€™s Universal Robotsby Karel Capek

Adapted by Paul Selver, Nigel Playfair, and Matthew Kreiner

Set in the proposed near future where Robots perform the labor of all Mankind, the beautiful President’s daughter travels to the island of their manufacture intent on liberating them. Will she find that inciting revolution among billions of Robot slaves may not be in humanity’s best interest? Directed by Matthew Kreiner.

â€œIf youâ€™re going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise theyâ€™ll kill youâ€
– George Bernard Shaw

VIGNETTES FOR THE APOCALYPSE VI

September 19th-September 30th.The 133rd Street Arts Center
308 West 133rd Street(between St. Nicholas and Frederick Douglas Avenues)accessible from the A/C/B/D trains at 125th Street, or the B/C at 135th Street

Tickets are $20
available at 212-352-3101 or at www.endtimesproductions.org

For Immediate Release

Contact: Cornelia Hanes at 516.286.5550/cornelia.hanes89@gmail.com

End Times Productions Presents its 6th Annual

Summer Sci-Fi Horror Play Festival

VIGNETTES FOR THE APOCALYPSE VI

September 19- September 30 @ the 133rd Street Arts Center

“Pushing theater to the edge fearlessly and perhaps even wantonlyâ€¦

â€¦Unlike anything else that’s playing on stage in New York at the moment”

The last two men on Earth are trying to make sense of their apocalyptic situation. Just as they think they might have things figured out, a Mutant Female enters and simultaneously complicates and simplifies things. Directed by Meredith Cody.

*Epicenter by Tom Baum.

Does knowing what makes a time-bomb tick…keep it from ticking?

A PhD candidate in math, convinced heâ€™s responsible for various campus disasters, is forced to consult the college shrink. Is he out of his mind…a walking disaster area…or both?

*Meat by Tyler Grimes.

Coinciding with the end of days as predicted by the Mayan Calendar, Frank and Wendy have been locked in their apartment for 146 days. They’re running out of food, water, and supplies. Someone has just knocked on their door, and they are hungry.

*The One with the Zombies by Rory Leahy.

The long foretold Zombie Apocalypse is finally at hand. Aspiring screenwriter Stacey Winter is not impressed. She’s heard the jokes too many times.

*Pseudonym by Michael Carbonne.

A manâ€™s marriage proposal to his girlfriend becomes a most difficult task, challenging his perception, faith and sanity. Directed by Michael Carbonne.

On a garbage processing space station in the distant future, Shep (an overworked, misanthropic nerd) and Curney (his slovenly, overbearing buddy) receive a mysterious distress signal from a pair of hot alien babes. But a dark secret, corporate bureaucracy, and chewy candy threaten the fate of their friendship as well as humanity at large- and two weeks paid vacation. Directed by Jeremy Duncan Pape.

Set in the proposed near future where Robots perform the labor of all Mankind, the beautiful President’s daughter travels to the island of their manufacture intent on liberating them. Will she find that inciting revolution among billions of Robot slaves may not be in humanity’s best interest? Directed by Matthew Kreiner.

***

â€œIf youâ€™re going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise theyâ€™ll kill youâ€-George Bernard Shaw

EndTimes Productions is an independent Theater/Film Production Company founded in New York City in 2006.

Since then, EndTimes has produced 7 full-length productions and over 100 short plays, involving the talents of over 300 theater artists. The company has performed in the New York, San Francisco, and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, winning top honors for Best Production, Best Director, and Best Ensemble at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2008 for William Whitehurstâ€™s â€œKnuckleballâ€, and again in 2009 for Mark Borkowskiâ€™s â€œThe Godlingâ€. EndTimes also won the Best Production award in 2010 for its presentation of Jamie Kingâ€™s â€œTMZTVâ€ at the Shortened Attention Span Festival. EndTimes has been widely featured in various publications, including, Time Out New York, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Broadwayworld.com, The New York Daily News, and The New York Post.

EndTimes focuses on work that is dark and satiric, with an underlying element of social commentary. Incorporating dance, music, vaudeville, and comedy, we produce high-energy, entertaining theater that is aimed at a wider audience than more traditional forms. Drawing for inspiration from sources as varied as the Marx Brothers, Alice Cooper, Robert Anton Wilson, Del Close, the Annoyance, and George Romero, EndTimes merges popular forms with the ancient tradition of live performance to create a theater experience that is appealing and accessible to modern audiences. EndTimes remains committed to fostering emerging artists through the provision of free rehearsal space, staff support, mentorship, and opportunity, and currently manages their four story facility, The 133rd Street Arts Center, in a spirit of openness, inclusion, and affordability.

VIGNETTES FOR THE APOCALYPSE VI runs September 19th-September 30th. The 133rd Street Arts Center is located at 308 West133rd Street (between St. Nicholas and Frederick Douglas Avenues, accessible from the A/C/B/D trains at 125th Street, or the B/C at 135th Street). Tickets are $20, available at 212-352-3101 or at www.endtimesproductions.org.

EndTimes Bunker announces it’s very first season! We present, onto thee, the three main stage productions for 2012 – 2013!

R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots
Written by Karel Capek

Debuting as part of the 2012 Vignettes for the Apocalypse Festival (September 19 – 30th, 2012)

Written in 1920, R.U.R. is the grandfather of the modern science fiction genre as the play that coined the word “Robot.” On an isolated island, Rossum’s Universal Robots are manufactured and sold around around the world. The factory is run by an idealistic man named Harry Domin who believes that the Robots will elevate man to the status of kings. However, soon the Robots have their own idea of what their future holds.

The Last DaysWritten by Carlos Cisco

March 7th – 24th, 2013

A unique look at the zombie drama (that’s right, we said drama) about what does a man do when he knows he only has a few hours left, a sister and lover to leave behind, and stuck in a shack surrounded by zombies. This touching and intelligent drama focuses on the people in the oncoming zombie apocalypse and how they react to the world around them.

The Miser
Written by Moliere

there in the summer time.So EndTimes mixes it up a little and gives you what you always wanted: the French with The Miser. In a world full of fat cats, greed, and economic troubles while the Wall Street elite spend spend spend. The Miser is set in that world as a farce filled with mistaken identities, misunderstandings, misnomers… and Misers.

Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness.Â These clowns can do nothing but harm America. […] Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy.Â Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all

Weâ€™re not even gonna get into the whole underage girl sidekick thing.

With his recent diatribe against Occupy Wall Street, Frank Miller joins that great pantheon of super-geniuses with bat-shit politics, from Kipling, to Wagner, to Bobby Fisher.Â He also joins the smaller club of super-geniuses who fail to understand the implications of their own work.Â I know, I know, youâ€™re thinking, â€œWhat do you mean, Russ?Â Look up crypto-fascism, and thereâ€™s a picture of the DK1 cover art.â€Â Yeah, thereâ€™s a definite strain of Ubermensch-ism running through Millerâ€™s world, particularly the Dark Knight series, and his preference for non-powered heroes makes the message all the more clear.Â Ayn Rand would have loved DK1, with its vision of a corrupt and mediocre society that just doesnâ€™t understand a guy who wants to dress up as a Bat and beat the shit out of people.Â And Hitler would have appreciated its final act, in which its battered hero saves the day by enlisting a band of criminals and ruffians to impose order on Gotham.Â One of Millerâ€™s bystanders in the series even draws the comparison to â€œGestapoâ€, but he is portrayed as weak-kneed and foolish and Miller gives him a funny name.

But thereâ€™s a lot of other stuff going in Millerâ€™s work that would lead one to believe that his politics and perspective would be a little more nuanced than they actually are in fact.Â Miller often portrays the media as a propaganda machine, in service not to a â€œliberal eliteâ€, but to powerful oligarchs, working hand-in-hand with corrupt politicians.Â Even the Gipper takes a beating in DK1, and DK2 is not kind to the Bush administration, whose principals make a cameo appearance as President Lex Luthorâ€™s cabinet.Â Of course Superman does impose order on the world and start his own religion cialis online from canada at the end, but as with much else in DK2, this seems like Miller laying a big â€œfuck youâ€ on his critics by taking the fascist strain they see in his writing to its logically absurd extreme.

Gandhi? Who the fuck is Gandhi?

Thereâ€™s also the enormous Chandler influence on Miller to examine. One could argue that Millerâ€™s writing style is not only a homage to Chandler, but a wholesale lifting of his entire stylistic vocabulary.Â If this is true, and it is, then the politics in Millerâ€™s work are nothing more than a symptom of his regurgitation of Chandler, whose novels are similarly dark and cynical, and also focus on decent, solitary men attempting to do good in a corrupt world with no place for them.Â In keeping with the cultural moment, Miller has largely gained his reputation by lifting someone elseâ€™s original creation and

mashing it up with the superhero genre to create what is theoretically a new art form, â€œComic Book Noirâ€.Â The great French historian Jaques Barzun argues that when a culture begins to repeat its old forms as the focus of its artistic life, that culture has been creatively exhausted and its collapse is imminent.Â But we were talking about Frank Miller.

Finally, thereâ€™s Sin City, a place where the cops are corrupt, the politicians are worse, the hookers are heroes, and the good guys are ugly, old, infirm, or some combination of the three.Â As Millerâ€™s original creation, Sin City is unburdened by the weighty history of the 70 year old comic book franchises that he usually deals with, so thereâ€™s no need for him to stay inside the lines of someone elseâ€™s created mythology.Â Sin City is all Miller, and what we find there is that all Miller is basically all Chandler — if Chandler didnâ€™t have to worry about getting banned for his subject matter.Â The best known installment of the series is probably its first, featuring Marv, a hero

so ugly that heâ€™s able to talk his way out of being killed by a pack of hookers out to avenge one of their own, by arguing that no hooker would let him get close enough to kill her.Â Marv is also prone to psychotic episodes when he doesnâ€™t take his medicine.Â And yet Marv is an eminently decent fellow who goes on a killing rampage on behalf of said dead hooker, ending up all the way at the top of Sin Cityâ€™s social strata in his search for the culprits.Â What does this tale tell us about Frank Millerâ€™s world-view?Â Itâ€™s basically the same old: good guys are screwed, society doesnâ€™t appreciate greatness, in whatever form it comes in, and the people at the top of our social institutions are worse than the Joker, and in many cases may even turn out to be the Joker.Â Is that fascist?Â Kind of.Â But not inherently, at least not any more so than a wide variety of cultural artifacts, from the epic poetry of Beowulf to pretty much every action movie featuring a lone hero ever made.Â The logic of the lone man fighting against a corrupt society appeals to us humans on a very basic level; itâ€™s the primate in us, looking to the bigger, braver, smarter ape for solutions.Â Miller canâ€™t be blamed for that.Â Is he a fascist?Â Maybe.